'The Loss,' A Book Based on a Series Based on a Series Based on a Book

The Originals: The Loss by Julie Plec

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Loss is an appropriate title for this book, which centers on Klaus Mikaelson's oh-so-very ill-fated marriage.

I didn't read the first book in this trilogy, so I don't know if Vivianne Lescheres was an important character in that book. If she was, I'm guessing the plot of that one centered on the 1722 battle between the Mikaelsons (the Original vampires) and the witches over who would rule New Orleans. We learn from The Loss that the battle culminated in witch-induced hurricane and an explosion, and that Vivianne died.

Now it's 1766. The Mikaelsons rule New Orleans with a firm hand, keeping the witch clans at bay in the surrounding swamplands. The werewolves, too, have fled the city for fear of Klaus. And Klaus still mourns Vivianne. She's the great love of his long, long, unnatural life.

...Which leads to a terrible decision. Pining for his lost love, Klaus goes to the leader of the witches, Lily Leroux, with an opal pendant from his witch mother. The pendant has magical properties, and Lily uses it to bring Vivianne back from the land of the dead.

This is a lesson literature has tried to teach us before. Bringing someone back from the dead worked out very poorly in Stephen King's Pet Sematary, in Douglas Clegg's Isis, and in J.K. Rowling's "Tale of the Three Brothers" in The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Klaus is many centuries old by the 18th century and should have known better.

The side effect of the spell creates an evil not yet seen in the Vampire Diaries world: zombies. In fact, Vivianne herself is slowing becoming more and more like the walking undead, who have a penchant for eating the hearts out of living things. Their first victim is Elijah's lover, Ava.

Don't worry about Elijah, though - he's learned not to get too attached to other vamps who aren't his siblings. By the end of the book, he's moved on to the lovely gray-eyed vamp Lisette.

Is Lisette a character on the show? I haven't watched very much of The Originals, although I'm familiar with Elijah, Rebekah, and Klaus from the TV version of The Vampire Diaries.

Some of the most delicious bits of this book are Klaus's love scene with Vivianne and Elijah's love scene with Lisette. Rebekah doesn't get a love scene in this one, unfortunately. The great love of her life, Eric Moquet, lost his life in the hurricane.

Klaus is a difficult character to love because of his destructive tendencies, but I find Rebekah quite sympathetic. She causes her fair share of destruction as well, but she's also been epicly mistreated by her older half-brother.

"By" Julie Plec is a bit of a misnomer; this was ghostwritten, with Plec credited as creatrix of the Vampire Diaries spin-off. She gets a lot of fandom hate, but I like her a whole lot more now that I know her horror film credits include Cursed, the stupidest werewolf movie I ever loved.

I received this book through the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review.

This is an affiliate link:

The First Bite Is the Deepest by Elisa Catrina. $2.99 from Smashwords.com
“Funny and clever and emotionally hard-hitting” "A perfectly creepy read." Elisa Catrina's debut novel begins as a quirky send-up of vampire romance, but quickly turns sinister. High schooler Stella Ortiz starts dating the mysterious new guy, but her friends are convinced he's bad news: Sebastian misses tons of school, he day-drinks something that smells like pennies, and oh yeah, he's a vampire.

I Catch Up With 'The Vampire Diaries' (SPOILERS)

Today I watched (well, listened to) the TVD episodes currently available on Hulu, which were the last 5 episodes of Season 6. I hadn't watched the show since perhaps the middle of Season 5, when Katherine (presumably) died. These were the new developments to me:

- Alaric Salzman is not dead anymore. He has a fiancee named Jo; she used to belong to a witch coven, but she's no longer any kind of supernatural being. She's pregnant - with twins. They're getting married.

- Tyler and Caroline aren't together anymore and haven't been for a while. Her mother died. She shut off her humanity and manipulated Stefan into turning his off as well. Stefan and Caroline have something of a relationship.

- Tyler and Matt are training to be police officers. Somehow Tyler is not a werewolf anymore, although he'll become one again if he kills someone. (He used to be a vampire/werewolf hybrid like Klaus, right? Is he still a vampire? I'm unclear on the finer points.)

Creative Commons image by Vamplady01

- Damon and Stefan's mother is a vampire, but they only found this out recently. She was stuck in a temporal prison that kept her trapped in 1903. Her companions there were six very dangerous vampires who have some of the powers of witches, even though witch/vampire hybrids are normally against the rules of TVD worldbuilding.

- Damon has the cure for vampirism. He gave it to Elena and she became human again. Damon was more reluctant to give up his immortality. Damon and Elena are still in/back in a relationship.

Creative Commons image by JJ Duncan

In the penultimate episode of the season, a bad vamp/witch (they are called The Heretics) named Kai has attacked the wedding, killing the bride and her unborn babies. (So sad!) Human!Elena is injured and in some kind of a coma.

The season 6 finale has Tyler triggering his werewolf curse, so any vampire he bites will be poisoned and die. It turns out Elena's coma is a spell cast by Kai. He has some kind of grudge against Bonnie, so he magically links Bonnie's life to Elena's. As long as Bonnie is alive, Elena will remain asleep. Tyler bites Kai, but Heretics are not killed by werewolf bites. Damon has the opportunity to let Bonnie die by doing nothing, but instead he kills Kai and saves her. So now Elena is in a coma for the rest of Bonnie's life. Elena's friends place her in a coffin; the Salvatore brothers will guard her until Bonnie dies. The episode almost ends with Stefan declaring his love for Caroline as, inside Elena's mind, Damon and Elena dance.

Then there's a short flash forward to a future in which cop!Matt is patrolling the seemingly-deserted town of Mystic Falls, watched over by a solitary Damon.

Season 7 is most likely to be the final TVD season, and it's already been established that Nina Dobrev will not be returning. Further, Michael Trevino will not return in the role of Tyler Lockwood.

Creative Commons image

I'm not nearly as interested in this series as I once was, but still, it was nice to get a little caught up.

My Favorite Women of 'Californication'

The hubby and I recently finished watching all seven seasons of Californication on Netflix. I didn't love the show, mainly because the two main male protagonists, Hank Moody (David Duchovny) and Charlie Runkle (Evan Handler), are misogynistic, unrepentantly racist douchebags. (Unrepentant racism was also a problem with Weeds, a show I liked better than Californication despite its flaws.)

The main female protagonists, Karen and Marcy, aren't much better. Karen is ridiculously indecisive. Marcy has a serious cocaine addiction and a mean streak. Mia is a thief who perpetrates a literary fraud, and a troublemaker in general. (A troublemaker isn't necessarily a bad thing, and there's a part of me that feels for Mia.) They're difficult women - interesting and complex characters, to be sure, but still not very likable as written. Methinks the team of writers was overburdened with testosterone.

Instead, my favorite women of the series are:

1. Becca Moody. By far the most sympathetic character on the show, Karen and Hank's musically talented daughter's biggest fault is her terrible, terrible taste in boyfriends. (One of them is played by The Perks of Being a Wallflower's Ezra Miller. He was a cheater.) Can we really blame her, though? Karen and Hank are hardly good role models of adult relationships. I'm not judging them for non-monogamy, which I do not have a problem with, but for their reckless attitudes toward other people's feelings and disregard for the consequences of their actions.

Becca is played by Madeleine Martin. She's a beautiful young woman (born in 1993, so currently aged 21) with the sweetest, most musical voice. If you watch Cartoon Network, you may know her as the voice of Fionna on Adventure Time.

2. Jackie. Played by Susan Sarandon's daughter, Eva Amurri Martino, Jackie is a recurring character in my favorite season, Season 3. She's a student in Hank's creative writing class by day and a stripper by night. Like her mother (on whom I have a perma-crush, no matter her age - loved her as the futuristic shamaness in Cloud Atlas), Amurri Martino is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. My favorite thing about Jackie as a character is the way she draws attention to the fact that strippers - a job too often degraded, along with all the forms of sex work and related jobs - are human beings, not things to be used and discarded. Go girl.

Like many of the fictional characters on this list, Jackie is never given a last name. In general, if a character isn't given a last name, that means the character doesn't get much development in the series. It's telling that a male character is much more likely to be fully named on this show.

3. Faith. Played by Maggie Grace, Faith came along in Season 6, when Hank is in rehab for his serious drinking problem. (It doesn't work.) Faith is a muse, inspiring rock musicians to write beautiful songs. She acts as Hank's muse when he has to turn his novel-turned-movie into a rock opera. His work sucks, but that probably has to do with Hank's limited productivity rather than with Faith.

You may remember Maggie Grace from such films as Twilight: Breaking Dawn Pt. 2 and such TV shows as Lost. In the Twilight Saga, she was the vampire Irina. She ran to the Volturi to tell them about what she thought was an immortal child, and her reward for trying to do the right thing - at least in her mind - was death. On Lost, as Shannon she overcame her spoiled, selfish, manipulative nature and fell in love with Sayid, and her reward was death. Her characters have no luck.*

4. Jill. Hank's TA (teaching assistant)/one of several lovers in Season 3 is played by Diane Farr, who also wrote The Girl Code. She doesn't just play a smart cookie on TV, she's an actual smart cookie. Jill No Last Name represents women who are very, very smart and also highly sexual, with no contradictions between the two aspects to their personalities. Also, she is absolutely gorgeous.

5. Trixie. Another working girl, Trixie No Last Name the call girl is played by Judy Greer. Greer deserves to be a Hanukkah Hottie, and she should have a bigger fandom than she does. She's played a few roles I find particularly memorable, including Fern/Violette in a '90s cult classic, Jawbreaker, and the one you'd least suspect of being a werewolf in a stupid horror movie that I love, Cursed. (Okay, I really just like the part where Milo Ventimiglia tries to kiss Jesse Eisenberg.) She's also an author.

Trixie is a sex worker because she loves sex. Like Jackie, she helps humanize and give dignity to women that society traditional considers unacceptable.

6. Pearl. Played by Zoe Kravitz (our beloved Christina from Divergent), Pearl is not a love interest of Hank or Charlie, but rather the friend and bandmate of Becca. Their fictional band is called Queens of Dogtown, whereas Kravitz's real band is called Lolawolf. Lolawolf is a mixed-gender trio, but the Queens of Dogtown are an all-woman group.

7. Sue Colloni. The most outrageous and over-the-top of the characters listed here, Sue Colloni is an agent Charlie comes to work with after he's fired from his previous job for excessive masturbation at work. She's played by Kathleen Turner with outrageous aplomb, because Colloni (as she likes to call herself) knows no shame. Why should she? She knows she's the best, even if her working relationship with her artists is highly unconventional and unabashedly sexual. Colloni represents the woman who's old enough to know what she wants and go for it.

 *Shannon and her stepbrother Boone (played by Ian Somerhalder pre-Vampire Diaries, who by the way is currently dating Nikki Reed from the Twilight movies) are an example of a more socially acceptable incestuous fictional character pairing, as we discussed here, because they are not biologically related. These types of pairing make up a subgenre of erotica called pseudo-incest. And I'm not judging you if you're into it.


 This is an affiliate link:


All In: 25 Erotic Stories by Emily Cantore. $4.99 from Smashwords.com 25 erotic short stories from the hot and bothered mind of Emily Cantore! To buy individually would cost a bundle! More than 130,000 words of first-time lesbians, threesomes, girls experimenting, sex toys and much more. Guaranteed to warm you up and get your mind racing!

#BookReview: The Vampire Diaries, The Return: Midnight (Spoilers)

Previous Vampire Diaries series book reviews on this blog:

The Awakening 
The Return, Book 1: Nightfall
The Return, Book 2: Shadow Souls

Midnight by L.J. Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the last book in the Vampire Diaries series to be written by L.J. Smith herself - or at least it was until Kindle Worlds opened up the VD franchise to fan fiction writers. You can read here about how LJ Smith, hired by Alloy Entertainment to create the series in 1990 and then fired in 2011, used Kindle Worlds to flesh out her own vision. As I write this review, Smith's two newest "fanfic" entries in the series she created are #1 and #2 on Amazon's Kindle Worlds Young Adult bestsellers list.

I read the previous installment, Shadow Souls, two years ago in March 2012. In that volume, Elena and her friends rescued Stefan from prison in the Dark Dimensions. Stefan had hoped a magical rose would make him human again, but Damon became human instead, and wasn't at all happy about it.

The town of Fell's Church is still under attack from the demonic kitsune (fox spirit) siblings. As the clock counts down to the Last Midnight, the town's possessed children intend to carry out a terrible plot, which kitsune sister Misao hopes will restore her evil powers. But, as Matt, Meredith, and wise crone Miss Flowers discover, the kitsunes are acting as minions for an even greater, even more black-hearted entity. Smith has introduced more Japanese folklore into her tale, which is one of the things I love most about this series. She's kind of like J.K. Rowling's American cousin.

Shrine to Inari no Kami at a Buddhist temple in Tokyo, with many kitsune statues. Public domain image by Ph0kin.

That black-hearted entity is Inari, the Shinto goddess of rice and mistress of all the fox spirits. Encyclopedia Mythica says that Inari is a shape-shifter, sometimes a god and sometimes a goddess. She has a springtime festival and is sometimes associated with the agricultural goddess Uga-no-Mitami and with Hinduism's Lakshmi. In Smith's tale, Inari has the largest starball - a repository of spiritual power - in the Dark Dimensions. Using the kitsune as her messengers, she intends to cause ritualistic destruction.

For further reading on the mythology of Inari:

"Goddess Inari" at Journeying to the Goddess
"Inari and Her Kitsune" at Goddess School 

Miss Flowers plays a more important role in this book than in any of the previous ones, using her benevolent witchcraft to its fullest extent. If you've only watched the TV show, you'll be unfamiliar with Miss Flowers, but you can think of her as the book version of Bonnie's Gran.

Damon, meanwhile, is determined to become a vampire again as quickly as he became human. To do so, he returns to the Dark Dimensions, unwillingly bringing Bonnie McCollough with him. Damon still has very strong feelings for Elena, but at the same time, he's drawn to the very innocent, almost child-like Bonnie.

At first I thought the red-haired woman on the cover was supposed to be Bonnie, who is described as a Scottish-American teen with curly, strawberry blonde hair. She doesn't resemble Kat Graham, the multiracial actress who plays Bonnie Bennett on the TV series - but then again, the TV character Dr. Meredith Fell bears little resemblance to the book series' olive-skinned Latina teen Meredith Sulez. Dr. Fell is played by Torrey DeVitto who, when the Meredith character first appeared in Season 3, was married to Paul Wesley, who plays Stefan. But then AGAIN, book character Tyler Smallwood is not described as Latino, while Michael Trevino who plays TV Tyler Lockwood is Mexican-American. The TV series is more ethnically diverse than the book, which is good. I favor adding diversity over subtracting it.

However, it turns out the woman on the cover isn't Bonnie but Idola, a Guardian of the Celestial Realms (a sort of embassy of heaven that exists in the Dark Dimensions). The Guardians spill some secrets in this volume, including the true revelation of how Elena's parents died. They also explain some of Elena's angelic qualities since she died as a vampire and came back as a specially-gifted human.

Bonnie gets herself into some serious trouble with a craving for a simple sugarplum - but Damon saves her. Stefan and Elena enter the Dark Dimension to join them, and they must work together with those left behind in Fell's Church to keep the Last Midnight from happening.

The story ends on a hopeful note, and it certainly doesn't read like the end to a series. Since I don't want to read the ghostwritten The Hunters books, I'll have to download the Kindle Worlds books and give them a chance. The two books that are currently out (The Vampire Diaries: Evensong: Paradise Lost (Kindle Worlds) and The Vampire Diaries: Evensong: The War of Roses (Kindle Worlds Novella)) are 2/3 of a story arc called Evensong. After she finishes that, the Daily Dot article linked at the top of this blog post says, Smith will write her "endgame," her version of how the series ends. That'll probably be another 3-book arc, at least. Fortunately, the e-books are only $1.99 apiece.

View all my reviews on Goodreads. I purchased this book with my own funds at The Dusty Bookshelf used bookstore in Manhattan, Kansas, and was not obligated in any way to review it. This review represents my own honest opinion.

I haven't been watching the Vampire Diaries TV series very closely for the past two seasons - or the spin-off series The Originals, despite my love of Rebekah - but I did watch on Thursday, May 6. SPOILER ALERT: It ended with Katerina Petrov, a.k.a. Katherine Pierce, apparently dead but unable to enter the afterlife through Bonnie. (Bonnie is the conduit between life and death now that she herself is back from the dead.) Some unseen supernatural force dragged her kicking and screaming backwards out of the church where Bonnie stood - perhaps she was dragged off the hell? Could this really be the end of TV-Katherine? We won't know until the series returns after a short hiatus on March 20th.

Enter to win Midsummer Night - Pagan Spirits Book 2 - from Goodreads through March 26th

Post contains Amazon.com affiliate links 

Book Review: 'Vampire Academy' by Richelle Mead

Occasionally, I see a movie that sends me running to read the book it was based on. The Thin Red Line's film adaptation inspired me to read James Jones' entire Wartime Trilogy, which occupied much of my reading time in 2012. When I saw The Prestige, not only did I develop my Titanic-sized crush on Christian Bale, but I was also so intrigued by the story, I read Christopher Priest's novel.

So it was with Vampire Academy. I saw the movie on Valentine's Day (review here) and couldn't get it out of my head. Earlier this week, after a session of ghostwriting at my local library, I sauntered over to the YA section and checked out the first Vampire Academy novel by Richelle Mead.

As I expected, I liked the book even better than the movie. It explained some things that weren't clear, or that I got wrong, when I watched the movie. I thought Rose's mother was a human, for one thing, but it turns out her mom's a famous guardian and a Dhampir. I didn't know the child of a Dhampir mother and a vampire (Moroi, specifically) father was also a Dhampir. This explains Rose's mother's aloofness.

I was slightly less horrified by the dead and wounded animals when I was reading about them than when I saw them on screen. Sometimes it's the visual that really gets you. I know some people were just the opposite on this, but when I read about Rue's death in The Hunger Games, it didn't affect me on such a gut level as when I saw the scene acted out by the beautiful young Amandla Stenberg.

On the other hand, some parts of this book that were delightful to see on film were even more delightful to read. Christian and Lissa's kiss, for example. Richelle Mead's writing shines most when she's writing about a strong passion, whether it's lust, anger, or Lissa's healing powers.

What I hoped would be explained better in the book than it was in the movie - Lissa's Spirit power, and elemental magic in general - wasn't really explored as much as I'd hoped. True, as the first book in the series, Vampire Academy had to pack in a lot of exposition, and perhaps Mead picks up the theme more in later novels.

I find the "fifth element" concept a little fascinating. As a word nerd, I think it's cool that the word "quintessential" literally means "of the fifth element." But what is the fifth element, exactly? What is Lissa's quintessence?

I think I'll read on in this series. I'm curious to know whether Rose ends up with Dimitri or whether she meets someone her own age.

In the meantime, since I don't have the second book in the series, Frostbite: A Vampire Academy Novel, in front of me, I've picked up The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Midnight by L.J. Smith. For me, it'll be the last book in the series, since I'm only reading the ones actually written by Smith.

I AM still reading Middlemarch, but very slowly, as it deserves to be read. It is not exciting book. Even though Jane Eyre told me I would like it if I liked Jane Eyre, I am almost 200 pages in and I am not finding this to be the case.

Enter to win Midsummer Night - Pagan Spirits Book 2 - from Goodreads through March 27

Our crime thriller Eminent Domain is a Kindle Bargain, only $3.99 for a limited time

Joss Whedon's 'Much Ado About Nothing' - A Non-Whedonite's Take

I've been looking forward to watching this movie for a long time. I love Shakespeare, and although I've never read the entire text of Much Ado About Nothing, I'm somewhat familiar with the play from the 1993 film version, starring Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson as Benedick and Beatrice.



I'm not a fan of Joss Whedon per se. I have no reason not to like him, I just never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, or any of his other series. Buffy was my mom's show; she never missed it. I can honestly say I never watched a single episode, but not because I was against it for some reason. I just liked other things at the time it was popular, and I've never felt any particular urge to watch it.

I have seen The Avengers three or four times now - I'm quite fond of it - and I did start watching this fall's new Agents of SHIELD show.

The person I am a fan of is Amy Acker. If you're not watching Season 3 of Person of Interest, you should be. (If you're missing it on Tuesday nights, you can catch up on iTunes.) Her character Root is really stealing the show this season as she calmly but creepily talks about her relationship with The Machine to her therapist.



Acker is a slim, dainty woman - very elegant and beautiful - and when she gets in character, she looks like a ballerina with murder eyes. I hated Root at first. (I'm overprotective of Harold Finch.) Then I saw how interesting she was. Now, while I still think her character does a lot of bad things, I like Root, and I'm protective of her, too.

(Cf. the character Rebekah on The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, whom I started off hating but ended up liking and respecting probably more than any other female character in the series.)

"Root" as Beatrice? That had to be interesting.

The DVD came out on Tuesday the 8th, and I got it from Netflix today. I watched it almost immediately. I'm going to watch it at least once more before it goes back - I loaded the Shakespearean text (this one - 99 cents!) into my Nook so I can read along.

It was everything I hoped it would be. It's a beautiful movie - visually striking (filmed entirely in black and white), true to Shakespeare's intentions (a dark comedy with moments of joy, and a lot of double entendres), yet fresh and original. Not only is Amy Acker a perfect Beatrice, but Alexis Denisof is a perfect Benedick. I honestly doubt I could ever get tired of watching those two together.



Alexis Denisof appears in The Avengers as the Chitauri leader - a minor role - but I remember him best as vile, promiscuous Sandy Rivers on How I Met Your Mother. I understand he's the real-life spouse of Alyson Hannigan, HIMYM's Lily Aldrin and a Buffy alumna. This is my first exposure to his serious work.

The other Avengers veteran, of course, is Clark Gregg, who plays Agent Phil Coulson in the Marvel movies (and spin-off TV show) and heroine Hero's father Leonato, the governor of Messina (a province of Sicily), in this film. Hero is played by Jillian Morgese, making her debut in a feature role; her paramour Claudio is played by Fran Kranz. I'm unfamiliar with Kranz - apparently he appeared in the Whedon projects Dollhouse, which I know nothing about, and Cabin in the Woods, which I understand to be a horror film. I couldn't help but keep wishing for Robert Sean Leonard, who played Claudio in 1993 (after Dead Poet's Society, before House). I just loved RSL in that role. I loved Gregg as Leonato, though.



I had a hard time not tearing up with joy when Agents of SHIELD brought Coulson back from the dead.

Another actor I recognize is Reed Diamond, here playing Don Pedro, the Prince. He was also in Dollhouse, but I don't know what that is. I remember him from Homicide: Life of the Streets, my major TV obsession of the 1990s. He was Mike Kellerman, a character who came in about mid-series when he transferred from arson to homicide.

Speaking of investigators, Dogberry the constable is played here by Nathan Fillion. Although I think the actor is very good-looking, I haven't really seen him in anything. I never watched Firefly, I don't watch Castle, and the one episode I watched of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog failed to capture my interest. I like Michael Keaton in general, but I found him very hard to understand as Dogberry. I think Fillion does a much, much better job.



The constable and his deputies do bring up one of the down sides of this movie, though: it lacks even the remotest whiff of ethnic diversity in casting. There are two or three people of color who appear as extras in the entire film, none of whom have speaking roles. Really, Joss Whedon? Although it was a clever choice to make Dogberry and his constables look like the cast of a modern police procedural, what cop show since 1985 do you know of that's entirely lily-white? None. Cop shows, with their ensemble casts, are usually on the more progressive end of representational casting. And that's just one idea of how at least one person of color could have been cast in a speaking role in this film.



I mean, in 1993, Don Pedro was Denzel Washington and his brother, Don John, was played by Keanu Reeves (biracial; Caucasian and indigenous Hawaiian). We want the colorblind casting. We expect it. And yet, actual Renaissance-era Messina was more diverse than this movie, I'm sure. (Which makes sense, if you think about it, because even though we think of Italy as a predominantly Caucasian country, all the Mediterranean countries are equally accessible to European, North African, and Middle Eastern peoples who can navigate the Mediterranean Sea.)

For the villainous Don John, Whedon cast Sean Maher. I don't know who that is, but apparently he was on Firefly. What I know about Firefly is that it was set on a spaceship and Nathan Fillion played the captain.



So I'm probably missing some of the fun by not knowing all the Whedonite in-jokes with the cast, but I still felt like I got exactly what I wanted out of this movie. It was visually beautiful, clever, witty, and fun - everything you want out of a Shakespeare comedy, even though this is probably the darkest of the comedies. 

This is an affiliate link:

Hollywood Classics Title Index to All Movies Reviewed in Books 1 - 24 by John Howard Reid. $0.99 from Smashwords.com
Another essential book for a film buff's library, this one is packed with information and reviews. Some of the entries are quite extensive. JHR provides all the information you need, including complete cast and production staff. I find JHR's information invaluable. I like to read not only who acted in a movie, but who made it, both top-billed and lesser mortals. -- Ross Adams in DRESS CIRCLE mag.

A-Z Book Survey (Nicked From Somewhere Between the Pages)

I found this fun book survey at Somewhere Between the Pages, and it was created by The Perpetual Page-Turner.

Author you've read the most books from: Charlaine Harris, probably, since I read the entire Sookie Stackhouse series

Best sequel ever: Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

Currently reading: Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Drink of choice while reading: at home, coffee; at a Starbuck's, tropical green tea

E-reader or physical book? Both

Fictional character you probably would have actually dated in high school: Augustus Waters

Glad you gave this book a chance: The Hunger Games

Hidden gem book: Master by Colette Gale

Important moment in your reading life: Finishing the first draft of The Smell of Gas, because once I knew I could finish writing a book, I knew I could write whatever I wanted to read that wasn't written yet

Just finished: Hotter Than Hell by Jackie Kessler

Kind of books you won't read: I generally don't read hard science fiction or high fantasy, and I'm not much of a mystery reader either - but I'll give any genre a chance if there's a particularly well-written example

Longest book you've read: probably From Here to Eternity. It's 860 pages (and worth every second of the time it takes to read)

Major book hangover because of: The Count of Monte Cristo

 Number of bookcases you own: One free-standing, two built-in

One book you have read multiple times: Wuthering Heights

Preferred place to read: Comfy spot on the couch

Quote that inspires you/gives you all the feels from a book you've read: "Tell all the Truth, but tell it Slant/Success in circuit lies..." ~ Emily Dickinson

Reading regret: I waited too long between each of the His Dark Materials books. If I'd known how great The Amber Spyglass is, I'd have read them one right after another

Series you started and need to finish (all books are out in series): the original Vampire Diaries series, the ones actually written by L.J. Smith. I have one more to go.

Three of your all-time favorite books: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, Little Women, Slaughterhouse-Five

Unapologetic fangirl for: Harry Potter

Very excited for this release more than all the others: Deborah Harkness's third All Souls Trilogy book

Worst bookish habit: reading in the bathroom

X marks the spot (the 27th book from the top left of your shelf): The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History by John Ortved

Your latest book purchase: Hm, my last few acquisitions were freebies, so I think my last actual purchase was of three Nalini Singhs at the discount book store

ZZZ-snatcher (the last book that kept you up way late): Lover at Last by J.R. Ward

Do you love tea? Are you an excitable fangirl/fanboy? You're gonna love this

Back in October, I was excited to see that Jamba Juice had an anticipatory smoothie specifically created for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Pt. 2.

(I saw Breaking Dawn Pt. 2 on Monday, by the way. *Possible Spoilers* I really liked it - except the part where I learned I am NOT ready for anything bad to happen to Carlisle Cullen. In Alice's vision when Carlisle was killed by Aro, I think I was more upset than Esme was. Fortunately, it was only a vision. I should've remembered there was a happy ending, but it's been several years since I read the book.)

Today, thanks to the magic of Tumblr, I learned there's something even better - Adagio Teas' Fandom Signature Blends line. Remember when I said I wanted drinks to go with all of my favorite books (I specifically mentioned a Thin Red Cranberry-Lime smoothie)? This is probably the closest thing on the earth.

The Twilight fandom gets its set of teas - including a Carlisle blend.

The other vampire franchises have signature tea blends, too. There are some for The Vampire Diaries. This one actually sounds like kind of a weird combination (sour apple, sesame and vanilla), but it's Stefan, so I might like it.

Not left out of the fun is True Blood. This one actually looks like it's red.

(While we're on the subject of True Blood, Season 6 spoilers are already starting to appear. So are some spoilers - or at least the synopsis - for Dead Ever After, Charlaine Harris' final Sookie Stackhouse novel.)

Harry Potter has not one, but several tea collections. One is specifically devoted to potions.

I don't really have a favorite favorite character from the Harry Potter series (other than Harry, of course), but right near the top of my list is Remus Lupin. If only there was a Tonks tea...and it changed color...

The Hunger Games trilogy is also represented; you can get blends including Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Cinna, Rue and Finnick. You can also "ship" two teas and get them together - the Katniss and Peeta combo, for example. So cool.

These are the fandoms that most interest me - all book-related. There are others: Adventure Time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dexter, Dr. Who, Firefly, Game of Thrones, Legend of Korra, Sailor Moon, Supernatural, Teen Wolf and, of course, The Avengers. It wouldn't really be a collection of fandoms unless there was a Loki tea. (It contains gunpowder.)

I'm really going to freak out if someone creates a Person of Interest fandom (Irrelevant) tea collection. Obviously, Finch's would be a sencha green tea. The Reese tea would probably also have gunpowder. Carter's would have notes of jasmine. The Bear tea would taste like doughnuts.

I have no affiliation whatsoever with Adagio Teas. I just think they're cool. I haven't tasted them yet, so I can't tell you what any of these blends taste like. Some are herbal, and some have caffeine.

Organic Butterfly Pea Flower Tea - this is an affiliate link

Being Midwestern Rules! Pt. 2 ~ Indiana

On Mondays I hook up with Pinning! at A Night Owl Blog/Baxtron{Life}. 

On Wednesday, it's Oh, How Pinteresting! at The Vintage Apple. 

Being from the Midwestern United States is hella cool - I think I proved that with my Nebraska post. I'm not from Nebraska; I'm from Indiana. We've got some pretty cool people, too. If you lived through the '80s, you might think of him when you think of Indiana.

http://cheers.wikia.com/wiki/Woody_Boyd

No, this is not young Haymitch; it's the character Woody Boyd from Cheers. Woody Harrelson? Not actually from Indiana. Or even Midwestern - he's a native Texan.

But these people are actually from Indiana.

Probably the coolest, most sophisticated, urbane individual to come from the Hoosier state? Cole Porter. The moment you realize you're from Indiana and so is Cole Porter is a very good moment indeed.

James Dean was from Indiana. Here he's reading The Complete Poetical Writings by James Whitcomb Riley, a 19th century poet also from Indiana.

When I say I hope to die and ascend to bisexual heaven and sit at the right hand of James Dean, amen, you may think I'm being facetious. I'm not. (Religion - it's complicated.) This is Photoshopped, but still - James Dean kissing Marlon Brandon. 

Old Hollywood screwball comedy queen - and lost love of Clark Gable's life - Carole Lombard was from Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Fun Fort Wayne fact: its library system has the world's second-largest collection of genealogical records, after the Mormon collection in Salt Lake City, Utah. I visited FW's main downtown library once and had a bagel in its coffee shop.

Steve McQueen, so cool there's a Sheryl Crow song about him, was from Indianapolis. His grandson, Steven R. McQueen, plays Jeremy on The Vampire Diaries.

McQueen's hometown is also the hometown of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. If you can find a greater 20th century American writer, read him or her or them.

Other writers from Indiana include Phillip Jose Farmer (who sometimes wrote as "Kilgore Trout," a fictional writer invented by Kurt Vonnegut), Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries), and Theodore Drieser. Drieser wrote An American Tragedy, the basis for the movie A Place in the Sun.

Adam Lambert was born in Indianapolis. Probably the most well-known family to come out of Indiana, though? The Jacksons. Michael, Janet and their siblings were raised in Gary, a large city just to the east of Chicago.

See? Being Midwestern is awesome. 

I Don't Think I'm In Kansas Anymore, and Back to the Thin Red Line

I'm back from my long weekend in Manhattan - not the fun Manhattan, but the one in Kansas - where my nephew got married. When leaving Kansas, I felt obliged to say, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." While we never got around to visiting the Wizard of Oz museum in nearby Wamego, I chose to associate Kansas with the L. Frank Baum classic. The other literary work I associate with Kansas is In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, which is rather less pleasant.

We did drive through Mark Twain's hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, but we didn't stop there.

The paperback I carried with me on my trip of Patricia Bosworth's biography of Montgomery Clift, a cheap paperback I purchased from Better World Books. Look how neatly its yellow edges match my manicure (and the dress I wore to the wedding reception.)

In Aggieville (the quaint shopping and pub-crawling neighborhood in the vicinity of Kansas State University), I visited The Dusty Bookshelf. There I bought my great-niece a Mickey Mouse coloring book and a picture book based on the Disney version of Peter Pan. For myself, I purchased The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Midnight.

But now that I'm back in the Great Lakes region, I'm back to reading the books I left behind, including The Thin Red Line. I'm about halfway through The Thin Red Line, the second book in James Jones' trilogy. Since I kind of cheated, in that I watched the movie before I read the book, and I've now read and watched From Here to Eternity, I feel somewhat prepared to compare the characters of Robert E. Lee Prewitt and his counterpart in the second book, Bob Witt.

You know what might be even more fun, though? Comparing the actors who portrayed Prewitt and Witt, respectively Montgomery Clift and Jim Caviezel. They have stuff in common, other than playing essentially the same character in adaptations of James Jones novels. (In fact, I now know that some of Witt's monologue in the Thin Red Line movie comes from the book version of From Here to Eternity, further fusing two fictional characters who are already essentially the same. Not exactly the same, though: Prew is 22 years old in 1941, while Witt is 21 in 1943, to name just one example of how their biographies differ. Obviously, Prewitt is dead at the end of FHTE - he never makes it to Guadalcanal.)

They both modeled during their early acting careers, for example. Clift modeled for Arrow shirts and Steinway pianos, among other gigs. Caviezel modeled clothes for The Gap. This is not a great picture, but you get the idea.

http://jimcaviezelfan.tumblr.com/post/47796028083/this-photo-was-on-buildings-buses-and

Clift appeared in a Gap khakis ad posthumously, via a still from his film I Confess.

(P.S. The nephew who got married? Also a former model, and so is his brother.)



They were both called upon to learn the trumpet, or at least to look as if they knew what they were doing with one. Clift's scene is the emotional climax of the From Here to Eternity movie: Prew's brokenhearted rendition of TAPS in Maggio's honor.



Caviezel's scene is in the romantic drama Angel Eyes. The music is forcing his character to remember a past he'd done his best to try to forget.



The other things they have in common? A perpetual tan. Intense eyes. Long, dark eyelashes that women envy; prettiness that at times verges on androgyny, but also the ability to rock a sexy beard. They're both part Irish, too.



I warn you not to stare too long, or you may end up pregnant.

Journey Beyond 2012: A Novel ~ Review

It's Friday, so I'm recovering from Thursday night TV. The Vampire Diaries season finale - spoiler alert! - had Elena becoming a vampire. It happened in the book series, but the TV series doesn't follow the books very closely at all. So that was surprising, but it wasn't the most shocking thing. The big shocks were a) Alaric Salzman is dead, and b) Klaus is not truly dead, but somehow transported into Tyler's body.

I hope Tyler's not dead. I love TV-Tyler and TV-Caroline together. I'm already unhappy about losing Alaric. He never even got the chance to have a romance with Meredith!

Sticks with you through your werewolf transformation, even though your bite can kill her. Caroline is a ridadie chick. 

Speaking of Thursday-night fictional couples, Person of Interest revealed something most intriguing about the mysterious Mr. Harold Finch: Finch has a fiancee who believes him to be dead. This woman was played by Carrie Preston, the lovely lady who plays Sookie Stackhouse's fellow Merlot's waitress Arlene on True Blood. Only a few days ago, I learned Preston is married to Michael Emerson, the actor who plays Finch. (Apparently, his last gig was as a villain on Lost, I show I never watched, but which also featured current TVD actor Ian Somerhalder.) When Person of Interest and True Blood collide, I'm a happy lil' cupcake - even though the storyline was a rather sad one.

What would I do without TheDorkMistress' Tumblr?

At least the love of Finch's life is alive and happy. Reese's Jessica is still dead. (Sad face.)

Springing the POI from Carter's precinct required Reese to don a police officer's uniform, in which, it should be noted, Jim Caviezel looks so ridiculously man-pretty. He's always ridiculously man-pretty (in fact, I think Caviezel means man-pretty in Rhaetian), but in a uniform? I feel faint.

Reese, take off the cop uniform. Slowly. 

But enough about TV. Let's talk about a different Italian-American, one whose talent lies not in acting (that I know of), but in writing (and cooking).

In Italian Cuisine a la Piero Rivolta, I promised you a review of Rivolta's novel Journey Beyond 2012. I have now finished reading said novel. These are my thoughts - but first, the trailer.



I loved this book. When I first read the title, I thought it was going to be a harrowing action-adventure story of the catastrophe that awaits the world when the Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012. This is not that kind of book, though. It's thought-provoking and inspirational.

I don't want to give too much away, but in Rivolta's vision, the world doesn't literally end when the Mayan calendar ends. Instead, the human race is presented with an opportunity to evolve. This is sort of an allegory, with Ryan representing one way of looking at the work and Valeria representing the opposite.

The one thing that annoyed me about this book was Rivolta's habit of referring to the human race as "mankind." That sort of casually sexist language may have flown in 1965, but it's out of place in today's literature.

Interestingly enough, the Mayan calendar is in the news again today. It appears that archaeologists in Guatemala have discovered a version of the Mayan calendar that goes well beyond 2012. You can read the USA Today story here.

Whether or not you believe the world is going to go through some kind of turmoil on December 21st, read this book. It might just teach you a little something about yourself.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher at no cost. I received no other compensation for this review, which represents my own true opinion.

Intimate Strangers + New Cover Art for 'Ravaged'

This is the cover art for Ravaged, the anthology that will contain my short story "Sheep Shifter." I'm on round 2 of edits right now.

When I wasn't editing yesterday...or drinking beer and eating veggie pizza...or watching the Vampire Diaries next-to-season-finale, followed by a particularly poignant Person of Interest (dead ex-girlfriends and all that), I was reading Intimate Strangers by Laura Taylor.

Intimate Strangers by Laura Taylor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The cover blurb says "Ms. Taylor writes with the power and sensuality of the best authors in romance." This may be the case, but if so, this book must represent one of her earlier efforts, before she attained that status. This erotic romance automatically lost one star for use of the phrase "throbbing loins." Twice.

There are two extremes the erotic romance writer can fall to that make the book less than pleasurable for the reader: so much clinical detail that it reads like a gynecologist's report, and not enough sensual detail. In Taylor's case, the actions of unlikely lovers Nicholas Benteen and Hannah Cassidy are buried in so much purple prose, this reader could hardly keep track of what was actually happening - a case of the latter extreme.

Some lines made me laugh, such as, "Her breasts plumped against her chest, her nipples stabbing like delicate daggers through the barrier of their clothing." I'm sorry, but when you start telling me about dagger nipples, you make me think of the Austin Powers fembots.



I really wanted to like this book, too. Since my current pop cultural obsession is Person of Interest, I found the premise of Nicholas - a lonely, isolated former CIA operative, similar to the TV character John Reese - intriguing. In actual practice, this novel is full of not-quite-believable/unnatural dialogue and telling where it should be showing, which was disappointing. Intriguing set-up, but less than ideal execution.

It should be noted, however, that instead of a Unabomber shack, Nicholas has a gorgeous multi-level home in the Nevada wilderness, complete with a roaring fireplace and a personal library. He's not only a survivalist, but also - secretly - a bestseller author of thrillers. Hannah doesn't figure this out until the very end of the novel - right before Nicholas' marriage proposal - but it's through Nicholas' printed words that she knows, deep down, he's a good-hearted person.

'Cause, you know, he did kill a bunch of people, so the goodness is somewhat buried under layers of growly alpha-male aggression. Like Bella Swan, Hannah Cassidy is quite readily willing to forgive the taking of human lives - and the overt threat to her own life, since at the moment they met, Nicholas was holding a knife to her throat. I really didn't mind his aggression, though. The reader knows he never intended to hurt her; his intent is to scare her out of his territory. I respond well to the emotionally damaged, outwardly mega-aggressive but inwardly sensitive type, which is why Zsadist is my favorite Black Dagger Brotherhood character and Lover Awakened is my favorite J.R. Ward book.

View all my reviews on Goodreads